||| FROM SHARON ABREU |||
I invite you to a short peace rally on the Eastsound Village Green this Saturday, Feb. 5, from 12:00-1:00.
We’ll be protesting our government threatening war with Russia and the buildup of troops currently taking place in that region.
If you can, please response on the Facebook event page I just made:
https://www.facebook.com/
If you’d like to bring some posters, that would be great. You can of course make your own, and if you’d like you can print out posters provided by CodePink here:
https://www.codepink.org/no_
Hoping to see you on the Village Green this Saturday at 12 noon!!
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While I fully support nations negotiating as long as both sides are willing to persevere, every now and then you get an Adolf Hitler who talks about peace but who acts out invasion and subjugation. Actions speak louder than words. Putin is doing more than saber rattling by inserting political subversives into Ukraine’s government and pointing 100,000 troops, attack aircraft, tanks and artillery at its much smaller neighbor. It is only prudent for friends of democracy and NATO allies to support and fortify a democratic sister. Ukraine would have been taken years ago had they not fought fire with fire. If we don’t stand up for ourselves bullies manipulate and take from us, and we all end up groveling before tyrants. Imagine the world we would live in today if we hadn’t gone over to help the Allies take back Europe from Nazi Germany. I hope negotiators will come to an understanding with Russia, but sometimes bullies are more likely to negotiate if fighting would be too costly.
Isolationism and pacifism can only get you so far when the other side just wants to see what it can take. Right now, a huge, powerful military with sophisticated weaponry commanded by a land-hungry autocracy is creating a pretext to attack, kill and or overthrow a sovereign nation. Not fighting back if Russia attacks because war is horrific is like allowing your neighbor on the sidewalk across the street to be abducted because to protect them with force feels violent and wrong to you. It is violent and wrong. The bully wears that wrong, not you. It’s not fair that we might have to take up arms against an instigator or risk harm to ourselves, but to shut down the bullies of the world we do.
We should prepare for the worst now while we can. If and only if Russia attacks, the Western democracies including the US, all of Ukraine’s tiny neighbors with full backing from the free world’s only benign collective security organization should resist that aggression with everything we’ve got.
Go Sharon.
If I may be so Bold: Negotiation and maneuvering is the only option with a country like Russia that could destroy the Northern Hemisphere in a Day. But, fortunately, the TV narrative, the soundbites, have nothing to do with what is really going on. There is a planetary populace revolution taking place, and no it’s not being televised. I encourage you to reach out to new sources and do some research. People are taking over capital cities, all over the world. Try a new news source. (:
I tried to walk away from this discussion, but I can’t turn my back without pointing out multiple tired old cold war beliefs.
One of the above comments suggests that Russia is inserting political subversives in Ukraine. We would never do that, right?
Actually Victoria Nuland, State Department official and wife of neo-con Robert Kagan bragged that the U.S. had spent $5 billion to install western-friendly politicians in Ukraine, including known Neo-Nazis.
Here is a link to a BBC transcript of an intercepted phone call where Nuland was directing State Department traffic and choosing who should run Ukraine, a call where she famously said “F*** the E.U”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957
One must remember that in WW 2 Ukraine was allied with Nazi Germany, and is still crawling with Nazis:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/10/azov-far-right-fighters-ukraine-neo-nazis
And here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion
The presence of these Nazis helped push Crimea to vote to return to the Russian Federation:
“Crimea Overwhelmingly Supports Split From Ukraine To Join Russia”
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/03/16/290525623/crimeans-vote-on-splitting-from-ukraine-to-join-russia
We should also remember, the U.S. made a promise to the Russians in 1990, as part of the agreement to dismantle the Berlin Wall and unify Germany:.
“In early February 1990, U.S. leaders made the Soviets an offer. According to transcripts of meetings in Moscow on Feb. 9, then-Secretary of State James Baker suggested that in exchange for cooperation on Germany, U.S. could make “iron-clad guarantees” that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward.” Less than a week later, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev agreed to begin reunification talks. No formal deal was struck, but from all the evidence, the quid pro quo was clear: Gorbachev acceded to Germany’s western alignment and the U.S. would limit NATO’s expansion…
It’s therefore not surprising that Russia was incensed when Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the Baltic states and others were ushered into NATO membership starting in the mid-1990s. ”
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-shifrinson-russia-us-nato-deal–20160530-snap-story.html
And finally, if we want to honestly look at which country has conducted the most regime changes and outright overthrow of governments, take a look at over 50 countries the US has manipulated, bought off or went to war with since WW 2:
Overthrowing other people’s governments: The Master List
By William Blum
https://williamblum.org/essays/read/overthrowing-other-peoples-governments-the-master-list
Part of the problem is that retired intelligence officials and Pentagon Generals pad their fat incomes from Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and other military contractors by appearing as “consultants” on prime-time news shows.
That is one way propaganda is layered into the public’s imagination to manufacture consent for the next “forever war”.